the battle effects are incredibly underwhelming and uninspired. I was about to shout "blasphemy!" until I read your entire post and realized you meant the effects, not the actual visuals in its entirety.

You're given a next generation platform, and the best you create is what's in this game? If I were a developer and given the opportunity, I'd have crafted beautiful effects. Not to mention they had to increase the size of effects because not only are they relatively boring, but they were small too..